Between Realities - Book 5 - Dragon War
by Dragonsight Elli
Summary: What happens when a visitor from another reality goes on a mad spree of conquest, even pitting dragon against dragon? This might be one reality.


Dragon War

By Elli Swanson and Dana Sterling.

Chapter 1 - A Yuletide Tragedy (Elli's P.O.V.)

"Where's Andreas?" I asked for the umpteenth time as we sat down to eat the roast wherry Manora and her team had cooked for us.

Mom was usually the one to cook, but as she hated cooking, Manora had decided to give her a break today as it was Turnover.

"He's sleeping," G'narish said for the umpteenth time as he sat down beside me.

"He can't miss dinner, even if he does puke it up," I argued. "Having dinner is one of the most important things about the Yuletide, and this is Turnover! Would someone please go wake him up? I know he'll be cranky, but at least he can get some food in him."

"I'll go," Tiffany offered.

As she had a feeding tube in her now, she didn't have to eat. She was just sitting at the table with us to be present at this all-important feast. I expected her back with Andreas in a manner of seconds, but when the seconds turned to minutes, I started to get worried. So did G'narish because he suddenly got up from the table to check on Tiffany's progress. A few seconds later I heard a long, drawn-out moan which turned into a scream which transformed into a gut-wrenching sob.

"What the actual shells?" I asked as I heard a thud coming from Andreas' room.

It sounded as if someone had fallen over. Manora set her serving spoon down and went to assess the situation. Dana followed suit.

"What the hell's going on?" I demanded. "This is Turnover, people, we need to be together today! I'm hungry, guys, let's just eat. The food is getting cold!"

"Don't you realize something's wrong?" Mom demanded.

"There's nothing wrong during the Yuletide Celebration, and especially on Turnover, that some food won't fix," I firmly replied. "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yay, God!"

I picked up my fork and ate the first mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy. Gravy was still a novelty on Pern, but it was I who'd shown everyone how to make it. My favorite type of gravy was usually turkey gravy, but now that we were eating wherry gravy, I found that to be even better. I dipped my fork in for another mouthful when I heard footsteps. Mom screamed as everyone came into the room. I had never heard Mom scream before, so the sound scared me out of my wits.

"What the shells was that?" I asked shaking from head to toe, fork poised over my plate.

"Elli, we have some sad news to tell you," Dana responded, clearly distressed by the sound of her voice.

"Can't it wait till after Turnover?" I cried in desperation to celebrate. "This is Pern's first Yuletide Celebration, and it's also Turnover. We already avoided one crisis, I'm not gonna let anything else ruin it! Now sit down, shut up, and eat!"

Mom suddenly slapped my mouth harder than she'd ever done it in childhood.

"No one hits me and gets away with it!"

I was springing out of my seat to slap Mom back, when someone grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back down.

"Andreas is gone," Dana wept, unable to control herself.

"What do you mean he's gone?" I demanded. "The tumors were shrinking rapidly. The Agenothree was doing its job. Or do you mean someone took him out of here?"

"He's dead, my heart," wept Dana, throwing her arms around my neck from behind.

I could feel her tears falling on my head.

"We gave him too much Agenothree. I went over him with my scan pad, and his vital organs were almost completely eroded away. We should've given him smaller doses, as he was a toddler. How could I have been so fucking stupid?!"

"It wasn't your fault, Dana," G'narish wept. "You didn't know how much to give him. The cancer was almost gone, but so were his organs. Elli says most of the time it's the chemo that kills, not the actual cancer. She thinks the chemo was responsible for Tiffany's feeding tube."

"Keep using Agenothree, Dana," I said calmly. "Just apportion it in quantities suitable for the person's weight. Andreas couldn't have been more than 20 pounds, so he needed smaller quantities of Agenothree. I don't know how much you were giving him, but apparently it was too much. You, as a healer, should know to apportion according to weight."

"I'm sorry, Elli, G'narish!" she sobbed, prostrating herself at our feet. "I should've seen my error."

"You weren't the only one administering the meds to him," I argued. "Manora did it, Ryeena did, Kara did it, ... There were so many healers treating him that it might not have been you that messed up. Every time you went over him with your scan pad, it looked as though he was improving. Someone else could've administered the fatal dose. If you did do it, I can tell by your actions right now that it was an accident. Rest assured that we forgive you, right, G'narish?"

I turned stern eyes on my weyrmate who continued to cry in stormy sobs that wrenched every heart in the room. He reached out wildly for someone to hold him, and his arms caught me in the shoulders. I turned to him, engulfing him in my loving embrace. This was someone we could not go back in time and rescue from Threadscore or exhaustion. He had not been a-dragonback when he had died. He had done it the natural way, so there was no way we could get him back. I rocked my weyrmate back-and-forth, completely forgetting anyone else was in the room, forgetting my hunger, immersed in silent grief.

_I saw someone new come in earlier this morning, but I didn't think anything of it because it's Turnover,_ Chlorith informed me as I sat holding G'narish.

"Who did you see?" I asked.

_Starwoman Lessa,_ Chlorith replied.

"I thought she'd lost her mind," I said.

_Apparently she got it back. She asked the apprentice on guard if she could help the patients today so that the healers could celebrate with everyone else. Her first patient was Andreas._

_Are you telling me that she gave him the fatal dose?_ I asked.

I had been speaking out loud previously, but now I turned my conversation telepathic.

_Why would she turn on Andreas? _I demanded_. What did he ever do to her?_

_She wants vengeance on you,_ Chlorith told me. _She blames you for Ramoth's death and she wants you to suffer the same way she did. She's been feigning madness so that she could carry her plans out secretly. And no, life mate, recalling Ramoth to life won't help because Ramoth died in shame of her rider. She won't want to come back._

_That's true,_ I remarked, _but what do we do? If we had known her plans, we could've prevented this from happening. We were so busy with the stupid Abominators that we didn't think twice about that other reality. Someone needs to warn Starwoman Kylara. She can put a stop to this. She's now Senior Starwoman of Benden Starhold, which was the only Starhold to remain intact for the entire 400 turns between the others leaving and reappearance._

_Lessa does have her good points,_ Chlorith reminded me. _She called on us to help Pern get rid of Toutatis, and she brought the other Starholds forward to save them from that cometary fragment, but I fear all that good is gone now that she's lost Ramoth. Who knows? She might've spurred Toric and his Abominators on these past three sevendays. Who knows? She might've provided them with the psychotropic drugs, because Faranth knows we didn't have any in stock._

It was not like Chlorith to level accusations against anybody for any reason, so I took what she said very seriously this time. We didn't need another D'lan incident. If the former Starwoman Lessa had been responsible for killing my son and had indeed supplied the late Lord Toric with the drugs needed to brainwash men and women into becoming the new Abominators, we had a big problem. No one in her reality had taken her back after the loss of her dragon, so I had taken her on as a patient, hoping to mold her into a better person as I had done with Weyrwoman Kylara. She had escaped from Robinton Cove one night, but I thought someone from her reality had come and got her. Now I knew my mistake, and that mistake had been what cost me and G'narish our son. I released G'narish in a state of fury. I sprang to my feet and hurried from the room without my cane.

"Elli, where are you going?" G'narish demanded desperately, as though his whole world were leaving him behind, but I didn't answer.

I just kept running blindly, not knowing where I was going, or even where I wanted to go. I just couldn't stand to be around my family and friends, knowing it was I who had cost my son his life. I hadn't given him the Agenothree, but I had unwittingly set free the woman who did.

Not realizing where I was, I missed a step and went plunging down the spiral staircase, screaming all the while. If I had brought my cane with me, that wouldn't have happened. Someone else plunged down the stairs, but deliberately. I heard the sobs as he half clambered half fell down the stairs to find me. He picked me up and held me tenderly.

"Why did you run away?" G'narish asked in a childlike voice.

"I did it!" I muttered in a deep, guttural voice. "I caused his death!"

"You never gave him an ounce of Agenothree!" G'narish cried, tightening his hold on me. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"I let the woman who did escape!"

I exploded into tears. No matter how hard I fought to hold them back, they came deluging down my face.

"What on earth are you talking about?" G'narish demanded again.

"I thought someone from the other reality came and got her!" I sobbed, my voice still hoarse and guttural. "I was wrong! She escaped of her own free will! She was never mad! She just faked it to get pity from those around her. I took her on to give her a second chance, but she killed our son! Chlorith said she was helping the other apprentices today so that Dana and Ryeena could celebrate with us. Her first patient was Andreas, and she wants revenge on me for Ramoth's death. She blames me for it completely! Oh, if I had known any of this from the outset, this could've been prevented."

"I'll kill her myself!" G'narish wept, his tears of sorrow turning to tears of rage in a matter of seconds. "I'll kill her myself! She's gone too far!"

"And what's more," I went on, calming down a little to see G'narish so upset, "Chlorith thinks she supplied Toric with the psychotropic drugs to brainwash them to ruin the Yuletide Celebration and Turnover. When that didn't work, she went after Andreas! What the hell did he ever do to her? He was a baby for Pete's sake!"

We clung to each other at the bottom of the stairs, hatred for Starwoman Lessa rising within us like vomit. That was where Tiffany and Dana found us.

"I'm so sorry, Twin," Tiffany said.

"It's all my fault!" I sobbed. "I let her escape!"

"You let who escape?" asked Dana.

"Starwoman Lessa," I sobbed.

"That's an error on all our parts," Dana ruefully sighed. "We all thought someone from her reality came and got her. If you're gonna blame anyone, blame Lessa."

"Chlorith said she snuck in and offered to help today so that all of you could celebrate. She said Lessa deliberately gave Andreas the wrong dose of Agenothree. It killed him instantly. She said Lessa's been supplying Toric with psychotropic drugs so that he can destroy AIVAS and plunge Pern into civil war."

"What?" Dana sprang to her feet. "If she wants to plunge us into Civil War, what will her reality be like? She's already spread so many seeds of discord and enmity in dragonrider factions that they might want to test out our claim that the myth of dragons breathing fire is actually true."

"They got blasters, if you'll remember right," G'narish reminded her.

"But if she wants to cause pain, she won't want to use a blaster," Dana argued. "She'll want a weapon that will scar as well as kill."

"We need to warn Starwoman Kylara," said Tiffany through her own tears. "If the war hasn't already started there, we need to stop it before it does. Pern should never see any battles—except the ones concerning Thread—in any reality."

Chapter 2 - A Plan Of Attack

We all took Andreas' death pretty hard, but none nearly so much as G'narish. He spent most of his time by himself, brooding, and he cried himself to sleep every night. Unsure of whether or not he wanted my comfort, I left him be, but it broke my heart to see him like that. It gave me flashbacks of when we thought D'nag had been killed. I thought D'nag would be a sense of support and comfort to him, but D'nag's first instinct was to avoid tears like the plague. Tiffany just watched you cry, helpless because she never knew what to say or do for you. I kept telling her to hold the person, rock him back-and-forth, talk soothingly to them, but she just didn't have the knack for it like I did. G'narish talked incessantly about wreaking revenge on Starwoman Lessa for what she had done to our son, and there was nothing I could do to dissuade him from this track.

"What could be gained in avenging Andreas' death?" I asked him over and over again. "You already have flashbacks of killing Toric and Eliana before our realities merged. What do you think will happen if you succeed in wreaking revenge? What do you think will happen if you fail? You could be severely injured, or, even worse, killed!"

"I'd rather die than live the way I'm living right now," G'narish muttered sullenly. "I can't take it anymore! I've lost too much!"

"You still have your family and your dragon," I pointed out, "and don't you think your children would be very upset if you suicided, not to mention me. You need to focus on the living, Narish. If there really is a Heaven as I was always taught, Andreas'll be up there smiling down on you. He won't suffer anymore, and he'll be happier than he ever was on Pern."

"He's dead because of that excrescence of a human being, Lessa!" G'narish yelled. "I want justice!"

"And we'll mete out justice," I said passionately. "I want to see her suffer as much as you do, but it has to be done the right way. She gave Toric the psychotropic drugs to feed the Abominators during the Yuletide crisis. She'll pay, believe me, she will! I'd love to see her executed, but we have to do it legally, or else you'll pay for a crime committed against humanity. Let me comfort you. Let me hold you. I always hear you cry at night, but I never know whether you want comfort, so I leave you alone. But it breaks my heart to see you like this."

For the first time in a sevenday, G'narish realized what his mood was doing to us. He held out his arms to me. At first I didn't realize what he was doing, but when I did, I fell gratefully into his loving embrace. We wept together for our beloved son, holding each other, while our dragons wept with us. A parent's grief over a lost child never grows old. It never goes away like other grief does. The ache is always there. I wanted Lessa to pay for her crime, but I knew very well what might happen to me if I actively sought revenge on her. I was usually a very vengeful woman, but something told me I had to wait for justice to be served legally, and as the sevendays turned into a month, I could tell G'narish was realizing it, too. Although he never forgave Lessa, he stopped actively seeking revenge upon her. We couldn't call her Starwoman anymore, as her dragon had gone _between_, so there was always that confusion when we spoke of the two Lessas. When Weyrwoman Lessa discovered what the former Starwoman had done, she was all for revenge as well. The murder of innocent children was unheard of on Pern. The last time it'd happened was when Fax took over. Dushik and Thella had been responsible for several murders when they were renegades, but they had never attacked children. I had heard of it all too often back on Earth. It was an everyday occurrence where I came from. Mom had never lost a child before, let alone a grandchild, and she just sat there, rocking back-and-forth, refusing meals, and wasting slowly away. There was nothing we could do for her, and two months after Andreas died, she, too, died of a broken heart. Mom had been the glue that held my family together, and now we were drifting apart in our separate ways. The only links we had to each other now were our dragons. Tina spoke loudly about taking Quath back to Earth where there wasn't so much drama. It was no use reminding her that there was much more drama on Earth. She was a fighting rider anyway, so she never had any excuse to go to Robinton Cove. Dana was beside herself at Mom's death. She had done everything possible to save her, but it had all been for naught. I took Mom's death harder than anyone else, because she had spent the first 36 years of my life taking care of me. Now that I was self-sufficient for the most part, I didn't worry about being taken care of anymore, but the bond between us was still extraordinarily strong for a mother and daughter. My family decided to continue fighting Thread for the four Turns we had left of it, but I wanted to continue working with mental patients at Robinton Cove. However, I couldn't really counsel those grieving the loss of Andreas and my mother because I was suffering the same way they were and was also in need of support. I turned to Tiffany and Dana for my outlets, Dana was my crying shoulder and Tiffany was my listening ear. Chlorith sang me to sleep every night, and sometimes, when I couldn't stand it any longer, I went into her weyr to cuddle up against her and sleep. I always found the best solace with my dragon. I was even able to be happy while in her presence, but I felt ashamed to be happy anywhere else because nobody else was.

"You're the boon that keeps us together," said Dana gently. "Perhaps it's your turn to set the example. You are his mother after all. If you're happy around everyone else, perhaps it'll be the cue for us to begin the healing process as well."

I took her advice and began smiling more often, so that when fall came to the Southern Continent, I was laughing at all Tiffany's jokes again. G'narish was slower to cotton on than I was. He still wept himself to sleep every night, but at least now he was accepting comfort.

Meanwhile, plans to try Lessa for the murder of Andreas and the coercion of many others were taking shape, but we didn't know where Lessa was. She couldn't travel between realities anymore, as she no longer had a dragon, but she did manage to pilfer a sled from Robinton Cove and had scampered with it. We had no tracing devices except Dana's optical camouflage, but every time we located her, she couldn't be found when we reached that location personally. She was on the move.

"She's as elusive as Thella!" Jayge complained when we enlisted his help in the search. "She must have some way of knowing when you're using your optical camouflage, Dana."

"The only way of seeing through optical camouflage is with another optical camouflage device," Dana said miserably, "and then you have to have it on a specific setting. The former Starwoman is very clever. I'll give her that much."

Suddenly, a horrible thought gripped me.

"What if she's using psychotropic drugs on other people?" I asked. "Trying to get them to do her bidding, like, oh, I don't know, start a war or something?"

"Start a war?" Weyrwoman Lessa said caustically. "We've never fought a war in all our centuries on Pern."

"Perhaps she wants to change that," I said. "Perhaps she's seen so much of it and relishes it that she wants to fight one here. Make everyone suffer for the death of her dragon! It happened here in this reality."

"If you're right, Elli," said F'lar, "and something gives me the creepy feeling that you are, we need to do everything in our power to stop it. Our ancestors came here to escape the ravages of war. We don't need to repeat those horrors here. Once war begins, it never ends. If it's not fought over one thing, it's another. We cannot let that happen under any circumstances!"

_I'll bespeak all dragons and see if any of their riders have been given psycho ... psycho ..._

"Psychotropic drugs," I supplied when Chlorith faltered.

"Huh?" chorused all the Weyrleaders in unison.

"Oh, sorry. Chlorith just told me she'd hold a meeting of all dragons to see if any of their riders were given psychotropic drugs, but she couldn't remember the term, so I supplied it for her."

"We must also consult Starwoman Kylara," Weyrwoman Lessa said. "She's senior Starwoman of Benden Starhold. She will have known some of Lessa's former habits."

"Not if she kept her doings secret," I argued.

"It's still a thought, and a necessary thing to do," F'lar agreed with Weyrwoman Lessa. "She must be stopped, and we can't go off half-cocked."

"Agreed," I responded. "But I don't think we'll have much luck pursuing that avenue. I think we're better off spying on her the way she seems to be spying on us."

"How're we gonna do that if we can't even find her?" Dana demanded.

"Good point," I sighed reluctantly. "We'll talk to Kylara, and we'll still try and spy on Starwoman Lessa," I said with a huge emphasis on the title. "I know you're above such petty means, Weyrwoman, so I hesitate to use her bare name in your presence."

"No worries," Weyrwoman Lessa smiled. "She's no longer a Starwoman though, so we'll have to think of something else to call her."

"A fugitive?" Dana suggested.

"A renegade?" asked G'narish.

"Well whatever it is, it better be fitting. Something you'd never be, Weyrwoman."

"I'll ride over to Benden Starhold tomorrow and speak to Starwoman Kylara personally. It was my son who was murdered. Either G'narish or I should be the ones to implement our plan."

"Agreed," F'lar and Weyrwoman Lessa said in chorus.

Chapter 3 - More What Ifs

"I don't know what's gonna happen, but whatever it is, we need to prevent it," said Weyrleader F'lar. "I found the secret code to get into the Nathi War files, and I saw the most horrific things on the screen. I posted it all to the AIVAS website. I'm surprised I don't have PTSD just looking at it. Fandarel has finally perfected the blaster and is making one for each and every dragonrider should we go to war."

"I don't want to fight!" Dana broke into tears. "We never killed sentient life as first contactors. We only used them in self-defense. The only time I ever put it on destroy mode was when I went out for that walk and got caught in the middle of Threadfall."

I put my arm around her shuddering shoulders and held her close to me.

"Dana, I don't want to fight, either," I assured her. "I think our place will be at Robinton Cove, tending to the wounded and mentally damaged from the war. We won't have to fight. They're gonna need healers for both physical and mental health."

"That's right," F'lar agreed. "Since Dana surpasses Master Oldive, and Elli knows more about mental health than anyone on Pern, their place is definitely at Robinton Cove. Elli will need a blaster just in case Robinton Cove is attacked."

"I'm not fighting! No way!" I declared stoutly. "How am I supposed to see where my attackers are?"

"Dragonsight," F'lar responded in a duh voice. "You always manage because of Chlorith's vision."

"But she won't help me kill people," I argued. "She already said she wouldn't. She's afraid of another D'lan incident where she'll have to kill someone to save us. I already have her searching all the dragons of that reality to see whose riders are infected with psychotropic drugs. If we can get rid of those, no one in their right minds will follow the former Starwoman Lessa in her quest for revenge."

"That's a start," F'lar was forced to admit. "Where is she anyway? I don't see her on the heights."

"I left her behind in the alternate reality so she can search minds for fog or blankness," I explained. "Dana brought me back here. I'm supposed to collect Chlorith in a few days or so. I really miss her, but this is necessary. I thought of asking Jaxom if I could borrow Ruth to help Chlorith in her quest, but I don't want him to feel the same way as I do without my dragon."

"If it's a necessary quest, I'll lend Ruth to it as well," Jaxom said. "But how am I gonna get back to my reality?"

"I'll take you," Dana said, recovering her composure. "I want you to check out all the dragons in the North, while Chlorith hunts for the ones in the South."

"Who'll do the ones in the West?" I asked.

"We will!" chorused my twins in unison.

"Aureath has a strong sense of when someone's being controlled," Ariana said, beaming proudly.

"Aurelith's sense is stronger!" Oriana argued.

"Who'll check the Waterholds?" asked Weyrwoman Lessa.

"How about one of the twins goes to the west, and the other goes to the waterholds," I suggested. "Whichever one checks out the Waterholds can enlist the help of the dolphins. Their sonar would detect any oddities in anyone's body, even an overdose of psychotropic drugs. I bet Starwoman Lessa wasn't counting on that now, was she?"

"Seeing as she's a xenophobe, she would definitely have underestimated that ability in the dolphins," replied Weyrwoman Lessa. "Dragons would make good dolphineers, seeing as they can hold their breaths for an insane amount of time."

"And they're excellent swimmers," I added. "They're in the water more than they're in the air. Chlorith absolutely loves to swim. I'd be a dolphineer, except for the simple fact that I can't swim, and I don't have the right equipment to stay underwater for more than 20 seconds or so."

"Can dolphins really hear dragons?" asked Lessa.

"I believe they can, but through their sonar, not normal telepathy," I responded. "I can be visiting them, and Chlorith'll add a comment when I say something, and the dolphins will respond to her. Natua in particular responds to Chlorith all the time. He always seems to laugh at her when she's being sarcastic or facetious."

"Natua's very smart, I'll give him that," T'lion agreed.

He was invited to this meeting because F'lar had wanted to implement the dolphins' help in the other reality, and T'lion was the dragonrider with the most experience talking to them. He never went underwater with them, because he knew his primary responsibility was to fight Thread until the end of the Pass, but everyone knew he planned to become a full-fledged dolphineer when the Pass ended. Gadarath could hold his breath for 15 minutes at a time, so T'lion was confident that he could make it as a dolphineer's dragon.

"T'lion, why don't you make the trip with Gadarath so you can talk to the dolphins and tell them what you're looking for," F'lar suggested.

"Their patients would be mostly Aquilan so we don't know how they'll respond to psychotropic drugs," Lessa added.

"They're humans with gills," Dana scoffed. "They'll probably respond the same way humans would. I'm more concerned about how the Kendite will respond to psychotropic drugs. They're felines who stand upright."

"They might be more susceptible then," Lessa surmised. "But are we sure this is what's going on? Are we certain that Starwoman Lessa supplied Toric with the psychotropic drugs for the new crew of Abominators?"

"Where else would we get psychotropic drugs on Pern?" Dana demanded. "We don't know how to manufacture them ourselves. We would never have noticed them if I hadn't known what to look for."

"You're right," sighed Lessa. "No one here knows how to manufacture those drugs. If we had, Elli would never have had to go off hers."

"I don't regret it if that's what you're thinking," I said drolly. "If I hadn't Impressed Chlorith, I'd've been a basket case, but Impressing my queen really wrought a change in me."

"I've seen how you were before you Impressed Chlorith," G'narish added. "You were always going off by yourself and listening to your tapes. You were hypersensitive to any noise and when you did help us on Earth, you were very particular about how you wanted things. You wrought all those changes on Pern because you didn't want to change your lifestyle."

"Exactly," I said ruefully. "I just never wanted to admit it in front of so many people."

"The changes you made were good ones," G'narish reassured me. "We needed more ways to communicate, and you provided them, but I notice you haven't posted on Facebook lately."

"What am I gonna say?" I demanded. "My son was murdered by a psychopathic ex Starwoman in an alternate reality and we might be going to war?"

"I think all our Facebook friends should know about this," G'narish concluded. "When that female goes to war, she won't just restrict it to Dragonriders. She'll want to kill or maim as many Holders and Craftsmen as possible. She'll want to wreak absolute destruction on us."

"I didn't think of that," I admitted. "God, I hope we can prevent anything from happening."

"Wait," said Tiffany, turning to me, "if she's stuck in our reality, how is she communicating with people in her own reality? How is she supplying riders with drugs?"

"You're right," I responded, brightening considerably. "Our fears may be completely groundless. She doesn't have a dragon anymore, so how the hell is she getting around?"

"She did steal a sled," F'lar reminded me.

"But sleds can't traverse from one reality to another," I contradicted him. "We can't even communicate back-and-forth between realities. How is she managing all of it?"

"Perhaps we should scan the skies for any smaller dragons besides Ruth," Tiffany said. "Ruth is conspicuous because of his color, but the others are conspicuous because of their size. If we see any smaller bronze, browns, blues, greens, or golds, we should report it to our Weyrleaders immediately."

"That's a good idea," I encouraged my twin. "You really nailed it on the head. If we see smaller dragons in the sky, what should we do?"

"Report it to the Weyrleaders," Tiffany replied, "and spy on them to see what they do here."

"Sonar tape recorders?" I asked.

"Definitely," Tiffany agreed. "Wear one whenever you go sweep-riding, and when you see the smaller dragons, because that's the only way she can get back-and-forth between realities, we hit record."

"Now you're beginning to sound like me," I chuckled. "Record, record, record everything!"

"This time, I think it's necessary," Tiffany said defensively. "There's a time and a place for it, and now's the perfect time."

"I agree that this is the proper time for it, but I never thought you'd say it," I smiled.

"I've lived with you too long," said my twin, also smiling. "I've gotten used to it."

"I used to always record you because I didn't know how much longer you'd be on Earth," I confessed. "Now that I know you're all right, I do it for prosperity."

"How many of those tapes do you still have?" Tiffany asked drolly.

"Every single one of them," I responded. "From Earth as well as Pern. Mostly some of them are the TV shows we used to watch, but a lot of them are us laughing or crying together. Dana's on some of them as well. The whole crew has been taped before: you, me, Dana, Ryeena, Kara, and Kylara."

"I'd like to add Starwoman Kylara to the group. She's cool," said Tiffany.

That suggestion took me aback, as I was usually the one to suggest people as friends.

"You serious?" I asked. "Not that I disagree with you, but you're usually the one who mistrusts and judges people."

"I don't judge!" Tiffany cried, outraged. "They judge me first!"

"We all perceive the world around us differently," Dana reminded us before we could start fighting.

"I'm always the one to see the good in everyone," I spoke, "and she's the one who sees everybody's true colors. I don't know how she didn't see the bad in me, but she never did. She's been annoyed with me plenty of times throughout the years, but she never gave me up as a friend because of my bad side. We'd have two Kylaras in the group, but that's not as bad as having two Calebs living in the same house. As little Caleb got older, it became a lot harder to distinguish between them."

"And speaking of Kylara," Tiffany cut in, "we should apprise her of the situation right away! We should let her know that the ex Starwoman is using someone else's dragon to go between realities."

"Why don't you do that?" F'lar suggested. "Starwoman Kylara's Senior Weyrwoman of Benden in the ex Starwoman's place. She needs to know what's going on, if she doesn't already."

"I'll go now, if it's okay with you, twin."

"Definitely," I said. "And give my regards to my dragon. I miss her so damn much!"

"Do you want me to take you to her?" asked Tiffany.

"I want to get her report," I replied. "I want to dance with her again. I never knew how much like losing your dragon this would be. Now I know how L'tol and Brekke felt when they lost their dragons for so long."

"But Chlorith isn't dead or lost _between,_" Tiffany reminded me.

"I know," I told her, "but I can't communicate with her between realities."

"Get your flying gear, twin, and let's go," Tiffany said almost shamefully cheerful.

She acted like that whenever she was under a lot of stress, and she had to cover it up. I reached over and put an arm around her.

"If you're stressed, let it show," I urged her. "Don't try to cover it up."

"Thanks, twin," she said, her voice trembling. "This isn't at all like our role play. Nothing could've prepared me for this."

I grabbed my cane and gently escorted her out of the room and out to Rollith.

Chapter 4 – Dragon Villains

We noticed a change in the atmosphere as Rollith glided in to land at the visitors' entrance to Benden Starhold. The whole atmosphere was thick with tension as we walked through the bowl, canes tapping and sliding in unison. Starwoman Kylara saw us and ran to meet us.

"Where's the third musketeer?" she smiled as she reached out to give us a hug.

"I thought she'd join us, but she's very distraught," I told her. "We came to warn you that Starwoman Lessa ..."

"I know, she feigned madness so that she could wreak revenge and possibly start a war on Pernese soil," Kylara's voice was singsong as she said it. "I know the whole thing, but I can't do anything about it."

"What?" Tiffany and I demanded together.

"You're senior Starwoman," I cried. "It's your responsibility to deal with ex-dragonrider renegades."

"I'm not Senior Starwoman," Kylara protested. "Brekke is, and she's useless!"

The way she spat out the name caused me to think that there was yet another divergence between my reality and this alternate one. She also mispronounced her name. She pronounced it like Brecky instead of Brecka.

"She's the most irresponsible, childish, narcissistic excuse for a Starwoman I've ever met! She thinks her title means she's entitled to the whole fucking galaxy, and if anyone dares to contradict her she explodes on them. She's no real Starwoman! I honestly don't see what F'nor sees in her! Now we have a brown rider as Starleader, and that really fucks up the Starhold's position on Pern. Brown riders can't be leaders and that's that!"

"F'nor's a good guy, though," I said. "He's a lot like his brother, though more easy going."

"F'nor's as bad as Brekke!" Kylara spat. "Who knows? Perhaps Lessa's using one of their dragons to get around. We do have a lot of psychotropics on the premises because of the riders who suffer from PTSD and other mental illnesses from fighting wars off-planet. I have noticed the stores have gone down considerably, and many of the riders who truly need them can't have them."

"So she's using psychotropics to treat those who don't need them, and she's denying access to the psychotropics to those who do?" Tiffany demanded.

"Yes, that's what it seems like," muttered Starwoman Kylara. "We can't warn F'nor, he's too much in love with Brekke!"

"What if Brekke's one of those who was treated?" I asked.

"Wouldn't make any difference to her if she were," Kylara sighed. "She's just as bad as Lessa. The only thing she doesn't do that Lessa does is kill people outright. She says she'd never harm a sentient being, which includes Kendites, Aquilans, dolphins, fire-lizards, and dragons, but she'll stop at nothing else to get what she wants. F'nor's well and truly whipped. He doesn't know what goes on in his own Starhold. He's too involved with Brekke."

"There is something you can do," said Tiffany softly.

"What's that?" asked Kylara.

"Spy," replied Tiffany. "Ride sweep. Then you'd know who was and who was not treated with psychotropics. You can hear all dragons, so it should be easy for you."

"As soon as I can find my own dragon, I'll join you," I chimed in. "I can hear any dragons as well."

"So can I," Tiffany chimed in.

_I am here_.

Chlorith spiraled in to land beside us. I threw myself atop her neck and hugged her tightly.

"I haven't heard your voice in days!" I sobbed, unwilling to let go of her.

_It's not just the riders who are being treated._ Chlorith got right to business. _It's the dragons as well. She injects the needle into their wing joints since they can't drink from a bottle. She mixes it in with fellis juice so they go to sleep right away and don't know they're being treated with something else. Starwoman Brekke was a journeyman healer before she Impressed Wirenth, so she was able to get more psychotropics from there. She tried to recall Ramoth from between, but she wouldn't come. Lessa wants to kill her for her failure, but she recognizes that she still needs her ally, so she's waiting until her revenge is completely exacted._

"This is terrible!" I cried. "We have to act now! We have to warn F'nor of what his starmate's doing!"

"I can't stay quiet any longer!" Kylara agreed. "To treat a human with drugs they don't need is bad enough, but it's inexcusable if you treat a dragon! They're the most sacred beings we have on Pern, pledged to protect the planet from PHO's and our only means of interstellar travel since the antimatter cores have been dislodged from the ships."

"Understandable," I said, reaching out to give her a hug, but she deflected it.

"I'm too pissed off to be touched right now," she apologized.

"How do you detox a dragon?" I asked facetiously.

"I don't know," Kylara confessed. "I've never had experience doing it."

"With your advanced technology," I said encouragingly, "I bet you'll think of a way."

"We might have to get Dana on it," Tiffany suggested. "I really wish she'd come with us."

"I'm here," said a very welcome voice.

I ran to hug Dana.

"I heard the whole thing! In this case, Kylara, you have every right to usurp Brekke and become senior Starwoman in her stead. In this case, a coup is most welcome. You have a senior Starwoman who's an accessory to murder, and she's also giving all sentient beings psychotropics."

"All except the dolphins," Starwoman Kylara responded. "She's afraid of water. She won't even bathe Wirenth without adult supervision because she's afraid she's gonna drown or that Wirenth will. Starwoman Lessa's doing all the Aquilans. They live on land as well as water, so they're easy targets."

"Do we know precisely who's been treated by them?" asked Dana.

"No. We need to sweep and search for the ones who have been and the ones who truly need it but are being denied access."

"This is where we could really use dolphins' sonar," Dana mumbled.

"Yeah, take every single dragon and rider to the sea and dump 'em in the water to see if a dolphin will diagnose 'em," I laughed scornfully. "Not gonna happen."

"We do have scan pads," Dana reminded me.

"Yeah, and how the fucking hell are we gonna scan dozens of dragons and riders at the same time?" I demanded.

"There're more than one scan pad in this reality," Kylara reminded me. "We can each take a few dragons and riders and scan them. I know there're a few people who have not yet been treated. Feerah and Merleek haven't been treated yet. Brekke's not a xenophobe but Lessa sure is, so she would have considered the Kendite and the Aquilan beneath her notice."

"Then we can count on them?" I asked, hope rising in my heart.

"Most definitely. I know for a fact the Kendite don't want to fight, but I'm not sure about the Aquilans. They're pretty bitter about the way Lessa treated them. The Oldtimers are being treated the same way as the modern riders, so at least she's made the concession to integrate with them."

"America fought with the Communists during World War 2 then dumped them right afterwards," I said. "Perhaps Lessa's doing the same thing."

"I hate myself for saying it," said Starwoman Kylara, "but I sincerely hope so!"

"What about G'narish of Igen Starhold?" I asked.

I was quite partial to him, as his counterpart was my weyrmate in my reality.

"We can trust him," said the Starwoman. "He'll have none of what's going on. He forgave Lessa until Feerah exposed the truth about her. Now he wants to see her die! Not literally, but he wants her to pay for her crimes."

"I agree with him on that score," I muttered.

"Let's get sweeping," Tiffany ordered. "The sooner we do this, the better!"

"Agreed!" Dana, Kylara, and I chorused.

"I have my twins doing the Western Continent and the Waterholds, and Ruth will join us and search on the Northern Continent. Dana, Tiffany, you, and I should search the Southern Continent," I said. "Chlorith knows what to look for. She's been at this for a few days. She's been really upset since Andreas, ..."

I couldn't continue.

"I know. She's sobbed herself to sleep every night she was here so far," Kylara informed us. "I heard her mental sobs all the way from Benden Starhold. I wanted to comfort her, but I thought she was just missing you, and you really can't comfort someone for that."

"I'll never let you go again, my precious!" I whispered. "Next time you go on a reconnaissance trip, I'm going with you!"

_Good!_

The cry was heard all over Pern, for Chlorith was so passionate about her statement.

"Let's go," I said, after giving her another big bear hug. "Let's find what we came to find and get out of this joint!"

Chapter 5 - Dictators in the Making.

"Why don't you come along to our reality so we can confer with the Weyrleaders and see what can be done about this crisis," I suggested to Starwoman Kylara. "We can't just let Lessa borrow Wirenth and attack us without us knowing what to do."

"I can't leave the area we're sworn to protect," argued Starwoman Kylara. "Brekke forbids me to go anywhere outside our area, though she goes all over Pern herself. She does this on the pretext that if I leave this area, all hell might break loose because I'm not staring at my telescope for cometary fragments, meteors, and asteroids. What she's really trying to do is keep us here so we can't defend ourselves."

"Heil Hitler!" I muttered.

"Exactly!" Tiffany agreed under her breath.

"Who was Hitler?" Kara whispered.

"Adolf Hitler was one of the worst dictators in Earth's history," Starwoman Kylara said. "He killed millions of people, Jews, Slavs, gypsies, gays, Catholics, and the disabled and mentally ill. If you weren't a member of the Master Race, (Aryans, the blond haired, blue-eyed, tall, slender sort), you were done for."

"If Lessa and Brekke have their way, we'll have another Holocaust on our hands, only it'll be Oldtimers, Aquilans, and Kendite who'll be the victims this time."

"Brekke isn't a xenophobe, but she's gone with all of Lessa's plans thus far, because she wants world domination just as bad as Lessa does. She even thinks she can dominate Wirenth, and if she loses her for any reason, she'll still hear other dragons. The dragons don't like her but they listen to her because she's senior Starwoman. When Ramoth died, Wirenth mated before Prideth, so Brekke became senior Starwoman. Is that the same custom you follow in your Weyrs?"

We nodded in concert.

"I tried to get Prideth to rise first, but she hasn't mated yet. I think she's inhibited by what happened between her and Ramoth."

"I wouldn't blame her," I sighed. "But can't you sneak out?"

"No," replied Starwoman Kylara. "If she doesn't hear Prideth, she'll know I transferred between realities. She can hear every dragon. I can probably sneak away to another Starhold, but I can't leave this reality. It'd be risky to try to go to another Starhold, because she'll know I'm planning something against her, but I can't let everyone suffer like this."

And she burst into tears. Kara, Ryeena, and Weyrwoman Kylara had joined us by now, and the six of us gathered around the weeping Starwoman and gave her a group hug.

"We'll figure this out, Ky," I said. "Don't worry."

"Ky?" Dana asked, grinning. "What's that from?"

"Since there are two Kylaras in this group of friends, I think we should call one of them Ky, and the other one Lara."

"Then who's Ky and who's Lara?" asked Dana.

"I like Lara," said the Weyrwoman.

"I think Ky sounds scientific which would fit me," said the Starwoman, drying her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Okay then, Ky, this is Lara, and Lara, this is Ky."

I pretended to make them shake hands.

"I'll go get the Weyrleaders and bring them here."

"Wouldn't that be too risky?" I asked. "If Brekke can hear all dragons, she'd be able to hear the whole influx of bigger dragons coming in and investigate."

"I'll go get the other Starleaders, including those of other species," I offered. "If the Starholds are all in the same position as the Weyrs are in my reality, Chlorith will be able to place images."

"I can give her the images," Ky said. "I can't go with you, though. I can sense Wirenth right now, and she doesn't seem happy."

"Probably because we're here," I muttered.

"Brekke'll know we're plotting against her," Dana surmised.

"I wish someone could take that ability away from her and shove it up her ass!" cried Ky passionately. "Someone like her does not deserve to have it!"

"I agree wholeheartedly, Ky," I reassured her. "Now, what does Fort Starhold look like? High Reaches? You have more Starholds than we have Weyrs."

Suddenly, Chlorith bugled an alarm, but there was no one there. We didn't have to worry about Thread in this reality, so what could be wrong?"

_I called every Starleader here,_ Chlorith explained. _Then we wouldn't have to do what Moreta did. Why aren't she and Orlith in our group?_

"We didn't think to add her," I answered regretfully. "I thought she was taking care of things at Robinton Cove, anyway."

"Someone had to stay behind to take care of things, but Brekke could've done that in Moreta's place."

"When Dana goes and gets the Weyrleaders, she can bring Moreta as well," I said, patting Tiffany's hand. "We're the jolly 8. We solve everyone's problems and hopefully prevent wars from happening!"

Ky gave me a dubious look. "I don't know if we can prevent this war, but we're sure gonna try."

A rush of wings told us that Dana had brought the Weyrleaders here, and more wings were flapping from all directions to land in a circle around us.

"Did you bring Moreta?" I asked Dana.

"Yes," replied Dana. "Brekke's in surgery right now, so I couldn't bring her."

"Shame," spoke Ky. "If she ever met her counterpart, she'd have a field day with her."

"They're polar opposites," I whispered. "Our Brekke's gentle, wholesome, and sensible."

Ky laughed. "I'd love to see our Brekke that way. That'd turn the entire Starhold around, wouldn't it?"

"A leopard can indeed change its spots," Lara declared quietly. "I used to be exactly like your Brekke… childish, narcissistic, needing sex all the time to satisfy me, going wherever I pleased and thinking that no one could touch me because I was a senior Weyrwoman. Then I lost Prideth and for 30 Turns I was a mindless idiot. I lay there, unaware of anything, just like the dead. I was ignored, even flat out rejected because of what happened between me and Meron, but what nobody knew is that Meron knew there was a mating flight going on but wouldn't let me look out the window to check on Prideth. He kept the shutters closed and had sex with me. I didn't mind the sex, but I did mind that Prideth was reacting to it. I couldn't get away. He was doing it purposely so he could be rid of two queen dragons in one go. He wished to destroy all dragonkind, especially my queen. He wanted me all to himself with no other duties to those "excrescences", that hog up his food and won't destroy Thread at its source."

Lara began to cry. "And I didn't know! I didn't want to believe him! I thought he was the key to my success at world dominance, and the sex was a bonus. Now I never want to have sex again! He ruined my life because he wanted to dominate Pern like Fax."

I held my arms out to Lara and let her cry on my shoulder.

"That's gonna stay with you all your life," I whispered softly. "I wish I could fix that. The change you wrought upon yourself was a magnificent change. Now, nobody can say such hurtful things about you. You've made up for it tenfold."

_And you have me,_ Prideth grumbled from her perch on the heights. _Now you know what to look for and you'll be more careful, though it isn't your fault you couldn't go to me. I forgive you!_

Lara stopped weeping, raised her head, and smiled in Prideth's direction.

"We have more important things to worry about," she declared. "For example, what're we going to do about Brekke and Lessa?"

"We have to watch their movements," replied F'lar. "I have the feeling Lessa's still in our reality, but she would have no way of transferring back without a dragon. That either means Brekke's with her, or she let Lessa borrow Wirenth until revenge was exacted."

"That could be a long time," I argued. "Brekke wouldn't be able to live that long without her dragon. I had to come here because I couldn't stand it without Chlorith any longer. I love her so much. When you Impress a dragon, you immediately love it. There's no escaping that because it loves you so much! Dragons don't know how to hate. They only know how to love. I think Kitti Ping programmed them that way. Dragons only hate Thread, and that could be akin to hating some food or other. Dragons know they have to char Thread to a crisp, but they don't know much else."

_Hey, we know lots more than just that!_ Chlorith bugled from the heights.

"That's because you evolved past your original programming, my love. You may've even been bioengineered, but you still follow the same lines as every other living species. I don't even think she ever suspected that you'd evolve in more ways than just growth."

"You're pretty good at comforting people," Ky observed.

_And dragons!_ Chlorith chimed in.

"Comforting aside, we gotta get down to business," I said. "How're we gonna monitor Lessa and Brekke?"

"Brecky!" Ky corrected me. "The spelling is the same but the pronunciation is different."

"And I'll bet she'll be Breck in another reality," I chuckled drolly.

"It's almost like we've got to kill Wirenth to make her see reason," argued D'ram. "I usually wouldn't choose that course of action, but something's gotta be done, and it looks like we'll have to go to drastic measures to do it."

"Sometimes that's what it takes to change a person," I sighed, "but do we have to cause the loss of a life? I mean, that's too drastic for me."

"I agree," said F'lar.

"We could take them as prisoners when we find them and try them for their crimes," I suggested.

"But what'll happen to Wirenth?" asked Ky. "She did nothing wrong. She's actually trying to stop Brekke from committing her crimes against sentient beings."

"I hear her lonely cries every night," Feerah reported. "She's desperately trying to dissuade Brekke from carrying out her plans, but Brekke thinks Wirenth's too soft."

"That's the exact problem I had with Prideth," chimed in Lara. "She tried to get me to stick to T'bor. She hated Meron with all her heart, as much as a dragon can hate, that is. She didn't like his need for power and domination, and she thought he was influencing me."

"He kinda was," I mumbled.

"Yes, he was," she agreed. "Plus, I was a spoiled-rotten brat all the time. I made Ranelly do everything for me. Now I wanna bring her to Robinton Cove to take care of her. She's definitely declining in her old age. I'm actually surprised she lived this long!"

"We'll find her after this crisis is over," Dana reassured Lara. "First we have to deal with this."

"I understand," whispered Lara sadly. "I just hope she can hold on for that long."

"I wonder if she'll even remember you," I mumbled. "Dementia is a horrible way to go!"

"I don't think she has dementia," argued Lara. "I do, however, think she may have cancer, and I wanna try that new Agenothree treatment on her. It's worked wonders on so many people."

"And killed my son!" G'narish shrieked, leaping to his feet, his black eyes even blacker in his anger.

"G'narish, calm down!" Lessa quietly spoke. "It wasn't the Agenothree itself that killed Andreas, it was the quantity we found in him when we autopsied him. Starwoman Lessa deliberately gave him too much, so that it'd cause his death. She gave him what we gave Tiffany, which is way too much for a baby."

"It's the same as saying if you gave a person too much chemo it would kill them," declared Tiffany, afraid to see him so angry. She didn't deal with yelling very well. "You guys gave me the exact dose I needed. Andreas got the equivalent of my dose. This was deliberate. She killed him on purpose, because she wanted Elli to know what it was like to lose someone you can't get back. She's been calling repeatedly to Ramoth to try to recall her to life, but Ramoth will not return. She is too ashamed of her rider to return."

I'm glad she won't come back," I spoke. "Serves her right!"

"But if she'd had Ramoth, she wouldn'ta killed our son!" G'narish cried, tears of anger flowing freely from his eyes.

I went to comfort him. I swept him up in my arms in a big bearhug. I let him sob on my shoulder as the meeting progressed. It was finally decided that we ride sweep in both realities to search for Brekke and Lessa. When they were found, we would report it immediately to F'lar, because he was the Weyrleader of Pern. We would also report it to Starleader F'nor because we wanted him to see what his starmate was really like. That might not phase him, though. T'bor knew what Lara had been like, and he just thought if he'd showered her with love he could keep her under control, but obviously that hadn't worked. And who knew, Starleader F'nor could be just as twisted as the two Starwomen. Only time would tell what would happen.

Chapter 6 - The Skolrom

"Looks as though we're all stranded here until Brekke moves on," I said quietly.

"She's not looking our way, so you may go now so that no one sees you. If push comes to shove, I'll send a fire-lizard or Skolrom out to find you."

"What the hell's a Skolrom?" I demanded.

"The Skolrom are a race of humanoid chameleons who colonized Pern about 2000 years ago to escape the Siloe. They camouflage so that they blend in with whatever sentient race is the majority at the time. If they are among humans, they'll turn human. If they're among Aquilans, they'll turn Aquilan. They discovered Earth when one of their children accidentally crash landed there in 2005. Their existence was hidden for centuries until the FSP formed and the Siloe attacked Earth to get rid of the Skolrom. They've named their Starhold after their home planet, Leeaajhu. It's on the Western Continent so that they can be themselves without Lessa noticing them. They're empaths, telepaths, and telekinetics, so they really don't need dragons. But seeing as Dana has all those abilities and also has a dragon, I guess dragons see the merit in them. All Skolrom can speak to all dragons. We've kept them from human, Kendite, and Aquilan Hatchings because we're afraid none of the human, Kendite, or Aquilan candidates will Impress the dragonets. The Skolrom learn everything via their telepathy. Their coats also are symbiotic parasites that afford them protection as well as the ability to camouflage. They wouldn't be able to do that without their coats. When they're not camouflaged, they're furry humanoids with claws for finger and toenails but they have actual fingers on their hands and toes on their feet. They use their finger claws to climb and grip things you can't grip with normal fingers. I'll speak to Starwoman Seeoru, to see what she might have planned. She's only 16 but she's senior Starwoman, because her queen, Lineth, rose to mate before anyone else's queens did. They Impress at early ages because they mature faster than humans due to their telepathic abilities. Among the Skolrom, the Siloe are turfed up to myth and legend in their minds. They've had a peaceful existence on Pern, and I really don't want that to end for them. Like the humans, they came here to escape war."

"What on earth is a Siloe?" I asked.

"A Siloe is a branch of the Skolrom race that has scaly hides like reptiles. They're born Skolrom, but they become Siloe by drinking the juice of a berry that only grows on Leeaajhu. This berry sucks out all emotions from the Skolrom, making him a raging psychopath. The Siloe do not reproduce. They just tempt you with the berry juice which tastes exquisite, so you get pressured into drinking it. They have the same abilities as the Skolrom except the empathy. They feel nothing but rage and hatred."

"That's terrible!" I said. "Kinda reminds me of Lessa."

"Lessa isn't that evil," Ky argued, "but they do need to be apprised of the situation. They generally hide from humans because of Lessa's attitude, but I don't think they'll hide from me. I just hope Brekke hasn't talked to them yet. Their Gelum is actually human. His parents were transferred to Leeaajhu Starhold before Lessa came to power, and he's grown up among the Skolrom from birth. Br'an Impressed bronze Tageth, and he flew queen Lineth."

"They're both pretty young, but they get along fine. I think Seeoru Impressed Lineth at age nine or so. She was named for the little girl who crash-landed on Earth back in 2005. I'd take you to our AIVAS terminal so you could read the file on them, but what if Brekke's using it? She's restricted all use of the AIVAS files, and we have to get express permission from her and/or F'nor to use it."

"Don't you have AIVAS devices in your room?" I asked.

"We do, but they're linked to the original terminal, and they'd know if we were using them," Ky replied.

"It's great to have devices in sync with each other most times," I muttered angrily, "but this isn't one of those times!"

"Agreed," Ky spoke.

"Roger that!" cried Dana.

I grinned at her for using walkie-talkie lingo.

"What're we gonna do?" Kara demanded. "From what I see here, it looks like our two realities are going to war! We don't have the equipment to fight. We don't have blasters. Fandarel's manufacturing them, but if Lessa has her way, they won't be ready in time."

"She wants to use another weapon besides blasters," Ky whispered so low that we all had to lean closer to hear her. "She wants to see if the stories of dragons breathing fire are true."

That sent a great keen through the circle of dragons. Each and every one of them was listening to what we had to say. Mostly, dragons sleep or sun themselves during meetings, but not this one. All the dragons were attentive and not liking a thing Ky was saying.

"The dragons won't go through with it," I said confidently. "They're programmed not to harm sentient beings, including each other, except when two queens battle during mutual mating flights."

"Elli!" hissed Dana.

She was mad at me for my gaff.

"It's okay, Dana," Ky assured her. "She was telling the truth. Most of the time the battle isn't deliberate, but Ramoth's battle with Prideth was. Not on Ramoth's part, but on Lessa's."

"Ramoth is no more, so we don't have to worry about her," I stated. "But what about Brekke and Wirenth? You know Wirenth won't approve of any of Brekke's plans, just as Big Prideth didn't approve of Lara's. But Brekke seems to think that she can dominate Wirenth. She's riding so high on her own arrogance that she doesn't see the danger we're all in. She just thinks she'll win this war hands down, and she won't have to go through with her extravagant plans. They're merely just-in-case measures. She has all of Pern under her thumb. She's exactly like Hitler. She'll sway anyone with her rhetoric."

"We have to nip it in the bud before it even begins," declared F'lar. "How's my counterpart taking it?"

"He's trying to sway F'nor away from her, but F'nor won't listen to him. He thinks Brekke's all bark and no bite like Lara was. He doesn't realize how serious she is."

"So the next step will be to alert the Kolroms?" I asked.

"Skolrom," Ky corrected me. "Unlike most languages, their plurals come at the beginning of words, so Kolrom Skolrom, Iloe Siloe."

"How would you spell all that?" I demanded, confused.

"Their language is simple to understand. When a vowel is by itself, it's a short vowel. When it's a double vowel, (like ee, or oo), it's a long vowel. There are no double consonants in the Skolrom tongue, except if there are two different consonants blending together. C always sounds like ch, as in cheek or chin, and a ch together has an sh sound. Sh together has the s and the h sound. Compound words are always joined together by hyphens. I'm fluent in Skolrom, of which Lessa's exceedingly jealous. The Siloe language is the same as the Skolrom tongue, but it's guttural, whereas the Skolrom roll their r's with their tongues instead of their throats. The sound you'd hear in a word like vision is always made by a jh combination. The ph together make their own separate sounds like the s and h do, so the f sound is always an f in print. But the th sound is the same as it is in English."

"So Seeoru would be s-e-e-o-r-u?" I asked. "I thought it would be s-i-a-r-a, the way it sounded."

"Nope, s-e-e-o-r-u," said Ky.

"So the first step is finding the Skolrom and trying to get them apprised of our situation?" asked Dana. Ky nodded in agreement. "Then let's get going. Where are they located?"

"I'll just call Seeoru and get her to come join us. The minute you've had contact with a Skolrom, you obtain their same abilities, but only when you're around them."

"Kinda like when you Impress a dragon?" I asked. Ky nodded.

"So can you Impress a Skolrom then?" inquired G'narish.

"It's not like that!" Ky laughed. "You don't imprint on them. It's like catching a communicable disease, only it's psychic powers instead of sickness."

"Who's that?" asked Dana suddenly.

She pointed to the bushes. A tall, slender young woman with long platinum blond hair and cornflower blue eyes was standing uncertainly in the bushes. She appeared to be lost, like she'd been transported there and didn't know how she got there.

"Seeoru, it's okay," Ky said gently. "These are friends. Remember I told you about that alternate reality that's still fighting Thread? These are riders from that reality."

"The ones Lessa and Brekke are plotting against?" she asked shakily. "The ones they're drugging all the dragons and riders to kill so that they won't care about taking innocent life?"

"The same," confirmed Ky. "What's your plan of attack?"

"Get the FSP involved," she said. "We won't attack innocent people."

"Then you can fight on our side," Ky declared.

"We won't attack people who are being controlled. That's shameful!" Seeoru cried. "It's unconstitutional."

"War is unconstitutional inn my opinion," I argued. "I don't want to fight either, but if I have to, I will."

"We already established your place is in the hospital," Dana muttered through clenched teeth.

"And if the hospital's being attacked?" I demanded.

"Then you'd be right in saying we have to fight," Dana reluctantly acknowledged. "I've never used my blaster on a sentient being, at least not to kill them. I agree with Seeoru that we can't attack subjects who are being controlled, but what if they're aiming to kill us first? Then we need to defend ourselves."

I heard a shaky crooning noise and realized that Seeoru was weeping.

"Why are they attacking us?" she sobbed. "We did nothing wrong, nothing that would warrant them attacking us."

"Lessa lost her queen because she died in shame," Ky gently explained, "and she blames it on the people from this other reality. She seems to think they, (and particularly Elli), are responsible for her death, when it was actually Feerah who uncovered the truth about her. The Kendite and Aquilans don't bother her, either, but she's out to destroy them, as well. Brekke's just out for world dominance. She'll do anything to please Lessa, because she thinks it'll give her more power."

"What if she's under the influence of psychotropics?" I suddenly asked, the idea coming to me faster than an FTL shuttle.

"We can't rule it out, but I highly doubt it," argued Ky.

"I could do a check from here," said Seeoru.

She closed her wet eyes, stood there silently for a moment, then let out an involuntary gasp.

"Whassamatter?" We all asked in unison.

"She is!" Seeoru breathed.

"She is what?" I asked.

"She's very heavily under the influence of psychotropic drugs!" Seeoru announced. "Lessa spikes her wine skin every day before she steals Wirenth, who is also under the influence by the way. Brekke wants world domination, but she wants no part in Lessa's vengeance."

"If you can detox her right away," Ky said excitedly, "we can get her into this meeting and she can tell us what Lessa's been up to while stealing Wirenth."

"Can you remember what's going on when you're that heavily sedated?" I asked.

"Seeoru can bring on a state of mind where the patient is lucid but remembers what happened when they weren't," Ky explained, now practically jumping up-and-down. "Check F'nor too, will you?"

"Even when I wanted to overthrow Weyrwoman Lessa and become senior Weyrwoman of all Pern, I would never have thought of killing people to do it, much less drugging them so they were controlled by me!" declared Lara stoutly. "I don't know which one is worse! I'd rather be dead than controlled."

"Me, too!" we all chorused.

"F'nor's not under the influence, but he's aware something's going on with Brekke. That's why he wouldn't punish her. He thought it was a phase that would go away when she saw what lengths Lessa was going to to get what she wanted."

"You can't just get off psychotropics, you idiot," I shouted. "What the hell is he thinking?"

"He's lovesick," Ky replied. "He's still in the honeymoon phase of his life with her, even though they first mated 32 years ago."

"Does she feel the same way about him?" I asked Ky, but it was again Seeoru who answered.

"Yes she does except when she's on psychotropics. Then it's all about hatred and destruction."

"So Lessa's not taking any chances with her," I concluded. "It took a powerful being like you to see the psychotropics in her and her queen. Wirenth most definitely would not have cooperated with Lessa if she hadn't been drugged first. Could any of you imagine your dragons cooperating with her if they weren't drugged?"

The whole group shook their heads in concert.

"We all shook our heads," G'narish said to make sure I knew what was going on.

"We need to check all our riders and dragons to make sure none of them are under the influence," declared Star dragonrider F'lar, who had snuck away from Benden to attend the meeting.

He wanted very much to get his leadership back, and he was going to lay into his half-brother when he got home.

"I can go along to all the Starholds and check," offered Seeoru. "I can camouflage, so I can both check and detox while I'm doing it. Then she'll have no case once she's discovered."

"But she'll just give them the drugs again," I argued. "We gotta find a way to take them all away from her and stash them somewhere she can't find them."

"There are people who actually need the drugs," stated Seeoru. "We can't hide them from them."

"Good point, but perhaps we can put them all in the hospital until Lessa's caught and punished. Then they'll not only be safe, but they'll also get the right dose of drugs they need."

"Exactly," agreed Dana. "Tell me who they are. I'll round them up and take them to Robinton Cove until this is all over."

"People aren't gonna like going to the hospital when they did nothing wrong," I sighed.

"I know, but how else are they gonna get the meds they need? Most likely they're off their meds because Lessa refuses to give it to them and they're going through serious withdrawal symptoms. Let me know who they are, so I can find and transport them."

"Most of them are dragonriders," Seeoru informed us, "so that should make your job easier."

Suddenly the clearing was full of people, either fighting, crying, or vomiting. One man paused in the act of slitting his wrist with a very sharp razor blade Dana snatched away with a quick wrist movement. Then the next thing they knew, they were all a-dragonback, all their dragons following dismally behind them.

"How did you do that?" I demanded.

"TK," Dana replied. "The dragons couldn'ta done it bettter. Lemme get them to the hospital, and I'll be right back."

Within seconds, she was back.

"I left Brekke in charge, but they're your patients, Elli," Dana said. "They all have mental illnesses, and they're gonna need even more therapy than they're already getting with the stoppage of their rightful meds. There are Skolrom, Kendite, and Aquilan among them, so watch out."

"I'm not afraid of them, Dana," I said calmly.

"But others might be," she replied.

"I'll go now and assess the situation. You guys go on with the war counsel."

Chapter 7 - A New Plan

Despite the discovery of a new alien race, I was having a bad day. I missed Andreas sorely, and I couldn't concentrate. Seeoru was detoxing all the dragonriders who had been given psychotropics, and I felt there was nothing for me to do anymore. I mounted Chlorith, and off we went, back to Robinton Cove, tears streaming down my face. The fact that they froze in between didn't stop them from falling. The jump was a little longer than I thought it might be, but I didn't care. All I could think about was comfort. I knew nothing would really help because we couldn't get him back, but I just needed to see him one more time, to kiss his sweet face, to hold him in my arms.

I marched straight up to Dana's office and went in without knocking.

"What's wrong?" asked Dana.

"Andreas!" I sobbed. "He's dead!"

I didn't know why I felt the need to remind her of the tragedy, but I did.

"Andreas is fine," Dana said. "He's alive."

"What?" I asked, disbelieving.

"He's alive," and she took me up to the ICU where Andreas was indeed alive, sleeping peacefully.

"How can this be?" I demanded. "He was given a lethal dose of Agenothree. The former Starwoman Lessa gave it to him. She pretended to see the error of her ways and volunteered to help the patients at Robinton Cove. Now I have an influx of patients who were denied their rightful meds so that she could use them on those who didn't need them to brainwash them and their dragons into fighting us because we killed Little Ramoth."

"Ooh, that's heavy," Dana muttered.

"What're we gonna do about it?" I asked, beginning to cry again. "If she sees that Andreas is still alive, she'll kill him all over again!"

"I know," whispered Dana miserably. "We just have to keep her away from this new dimension. Elli, look out!"

I didn't need the warning. Suddenly, a strong sense of vertigo overcame me as I heard a cane tapping down the hall towards us. Was Tiffany here? I hadn't told her we were here, but she had followed me anyway. Had she left the room before without my knowledge? Was she returning?

"Dana, I just came to check on my son before we celebrated Turnover," I heard my own voice say in a rush. "Pity he can't join in. Sofia's been looking for him ever since he started that immunotherapy. He's really coming on strong, isn't he?"

"What happened?" I asked.

"This is a different reality from the one you just left," Dana replied. "Perhaps we can end Fubar Lessa's attack and merge again. You know when we merge all those who died in one reality but not the other come back to life. It happened with D'ram, R'mart, and Bedella, so it'll happen again to Andreas."

"And how the hell are we gonna take their dragons away?" I demanded. "After you Impress, the dragon's yours forever. The only way you can take them away is to kill them. You're not gonna be that cruel?"

"Of course not!" my other self cried. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

"Then how the fucking shards do we accomplish this task?" I demanded.

"Take them here, detox them, then deal with the riders," declared Dana.

"Seeoru's already doing that," I said.

"Who's Seeoru?" wondered Dana.

"Have you discovered the Skolrom yet?" I asked.

"No," Dana replied. "Are there more alien races colonizing Pern?"

"These Skolrom came with the original colonists 2500 Turns ago," I told her. "They have all the same powers as dragons. They can teleport, do TK, and they're empaths and telepaths. From something Ky said, I gather they might be able to heal people as well. They'd be great additions to the staff here."

"What do they look like?" asked Ryeena.

"They're humanoid chameleons who can transform into any other sentient species to blend in. When they're in their true form, they're furry humanoids with claws for fingernails and toenails but human like fingers and toes on their hands and feet. They came here to escape their mortal enemies called the Siloe. That's a branch of the Skolrom race but they have scaly hides instead of the fur the Skolrom have. They have all the same abilities as the Skolrom except the healing and the empathy. According to Seeoru, the only ability the Siloe have that the Skolrom don't is the ability to kill with the mind alone. It's a good thing they got away from them. I believe the Siloe were helping the Nathi in their reality. Definitely a lethal combo."

"Who's Ky?" inquired Dana.

"Starwoman Kylara," I said. "She's Ky, and Weyrwoman Kylara is Lara."

"Good distinction," Dana agreed.

"I think the only thing to do is kill Starwoman Lessa," G'narish said solemnly.

"Why?" asked a plaintive voice from the doorway. "I did nothing wrong!"

And to my amazement, the speaker burst into tears.

"Another point of divergence," Dana muttered. "She doesn't remember anything of her past life, not even that she rode a dragon. All she remembers is her own name. She doesn't even remember who her parents were. She's full-blooded sister to Lord Jaxom, and she doesn't know it. She has the mentality of a young child. Kinda like the way Kylara was before you brought her back out into the open and the dragons recalled Prideth to life."

"Do we enlighten her?" I asked uncertainly.

"No!" Dana shouted too quickly. "If she had an older mentality I'd tell her in a heartbeat, but she's not just suffering from amnesia. She's completely lost her mind."

"So yours and Lessa's actions together have formed this new reality," I surmised.

"Sure seems like it," Dana sighed.

"I wasn't even aware a divergence had been made until I heard your voice," reported my counterpart. "It's weird for there to be two of us.

"Yes it is," Dana said wisely.

"But that doesn't answer the original question. How the hell are we gonna take their dragons away?"

"Keep them in separate realities until the crisis passes," Dana declared in a duh tone. "You and this Seeoru detox all the riders, and I'll detox their dragons from here. Then we deal with Starwoman Lessa!"

I kissed Andreas one more time, left the hospital, and mounted Chlorith. I had my work cut out for me, that was for sure. Not only did I have to detox the riders who had been given the drugs, I also had to get the riders who needed the drugs back on them before anything else untoward happened. I had to shepherd the dragons into this new reality without their riders knowing it, which was gonna be nearly impossible. Then I had to give them the correct images to get here.

_I can do that_, Chlorith told me.

I had transported Seeoru and Lineth back to Robinton Cove so she could start working on the riders, but now I had to get the dragons back to this new Dana. Could I do it? I didn't know, but I sure as hell had to try.

Chapter 8 - A Double Surprise

As excited as I was to know my son was alive, I still had duties to attend to at Robinton Cove. Not only did I have my other children to deal with , I also had a huge influx of patients from the first alternate reality. I couldn't see to give them their meds, but I could offer them therapy and a shoulder to cry on during their depressed moods. I would not, however, become a punching bag to those riders who acted out in anger to hide their sadness and hopelessness.

"This is what happens when you don't give people their prescribed meds," I told Seeoru.

She had offered to stay at Robinton Cove to help me with all the new patients. She knew some of them from her own Starhold, but others were completely foreign to her. I had the feeling that the Starholds never communicated amongst each other. This was also true of our Weyrs, but we were working on that. When the Pass was over, we'd have gathers just like the Holds. Hatchings would not be the only times we would invite Holders in anymore. I devoutly hoped the Starholds would do the same once Lessa's reign of terror ended. We were working on that, too. The Dana of the new reality was working on the dragons Seeoru had discovered being under the influence, and it was my duty to heal the riders who needed drugs but didn't get them. Seeoru had taken on the task of detoxing those riders who had been under the influence.

"Lessa's gonna flip her lid when she realizes we've discovered her plans," I said to Seeoru, to whom I had taken a great liking.

"Incidentally, you need to wear a spacesuit the next time you go _between_," she announced in a complete change of subject.

"I do not!" I replied indignantly, "I'm just going to Honshu to check on G'narish. I don't need to go any more than eight seconds."

"The other people inside this room may not agree with you," she responded in a mysterious tone of voice.

"Who else is in here?" I demanded, but I got no response.

"They'll respond when they've learned to," Seeoru said serenely.

"What do you mean when they've learned to? Are we talking about an alien race of people who don't know our language?"

"They are human," she said, smiling broadly at me, "but you won't see them for about nine months or so."

"You can't be serious!" I shouted at her. "I went through menopause! I can't be pregnant!"

"The very last egg was fertilized, Elli. Your twin sons will be born in approximately nine months."

"You're not a dolphin!" I shouted. "You don't have sonar. How the fuck do you know I'm pregnant?"

"I can sense the babies inside you. Even when they're zygotes they have a presence. This is how Skolrom mothers discover they're pregnant. Their babies give them a telepathic touch within the eggs. We hatch but are suckled. The mother always lays two eggs, one boy and one girl. Sometimes the eggs will split, in which case she has quadruplets. If one egg splits, the other one always does, too. The mother nurses her young, like your platypuses I'm told. They're egg-laying mammals, too."

I was so busy digesting the news that I was pregnant again, that I barely paid attention to her lecture about Skolrom babies. What was I going to tell G'narish? He wouldn't want to bring another child into this world, not now that we may be going to war. We were disbanding Lessa's followers, that was true, but what if she found more? What if she stole back the psychotropic drugs? Neither she nor Wirenth was anywhere to be seen. Had she gone back to her reality? Should I tell G'narish at all? Should I just go _between_ without a spacesuit and end it?

"No, no, no!" wailed Seeoru suddenly. "Life is precious! It is sacred! No matter what the situation, never terminate your pregnancy! You will be killing living beings with intelligence, body parts, blood, and spirits! You never know what could happen to your child when you bring it into the world, but it could be something wonderful! Please, please, don't abort your twins!"

She prostrated herself at my feet, crooning in such a heartbreaking way that I knelt down beside her and took her up in my arms.

"Okay, okay, it was just a thought," I reassured her . "I didn't know you could read my thoughts. I'm just thinking about G'narish and how he wouldn't want to bring another child in the world just yet."

"But by the time they're born, this crisis could be over," Seeoru protested.

"What're you talking about?" demanded a tired, depressed voice from the doorway.

"Oh, Narish!" I cried, releasing Seeoru and throwing myself into his arms.

"Who's pregnant?" he demanded. "How do you know the crisis will be over in nine months? Are you a prescient like my daughters?"

"That is the one psychic ability I unfortunately do not possess," said Seeoru, calming down; "but we are rounding up those people she drugged. She'll have no followers left after they've been detoxed."

"Whoever's pregnant will have double reason to celebrate, but if it's one of the patients, I suggest withholding the psychotropics and leaving her on lockdown in case she does something stupid without her meds," G'narish advised us.

"It's me!" I cried in a guttural voice, exploding into tears. "Only a sevenday after I lost Andreas, I discover I'm pregnant again!"

"Let's let Dana run over you with her scan pad before we jump to conclusions. It's impossible that you're pregnant again. You're going through menopause."

"It's the very last egg that fertilized," said Seeoru calmly. "She let it go last month during Chlorith's mating flight."

"Which reminds me, I probably shouldn't let Chlorith do my traveling for awhile," I said. "She's getting egg heavy."

G'narish exploded into tears right along with me.

"How did you know she was pregnant?" he demanded of Seeoru.

"As soon as the egg and the sperm become one, it has a telepathic presence," she explained. "I begged Elli not to terminate the pregnancy on those grounds."

G'narish rounded on me like a billowing thundercloud.

"You were gonna terminate the pregnancy?" His voice was low and menacing but rising with every word he spoke. "You were gonna terminate my child?"

"It was just a thought, Narish," I said soothingly through my own tears. "What if we end up going to war? What would become of the babies, then?"

"We'd make sure the war was fought on ex-Starwoman Lessa's soil, not ours!"

"But what if it isn't?" I sobbed desperately.

"What if, what if, what if!" G'narish exploded, shaking my shoulders roughly. "This whole universe lives on what ifs! All we have to do is make the right choice to bring about the right what if! I have a simple solution to this problem, kill, Starwoman, Lessa! That's the only way to bring peace!"

"We cannot kill anyone," Seeoru said gently. "Whatever she did to hurt you, she does not deserve to die."

"She killed our son!" G'narish sobbed. It was all I could do to hold him upright. "She murdered our son by deliberately giving him an overdose of Agenothree! What'm I supposed to do? I can't get revenge for my son?"

"Justice, not revenge," Seeoru said cryptically. "She needs to be punished for her crimes, but she does not need to die."

"She won't accept any punishment we give her!" G'narish protested. "She's at large with another person's dragon, and we have no clue where she is. Wirenth might need help. Lessa could be beating her up for not being Ramoth.

"I sure as hell hope not, but I bet you're 100% right," I said to G'narish.

"Oh, don't say that!" Seeoru cried.

"Beating a human, Kendite, Aquilan, or Skolrom is already inexcusable, but beating up a dragon magnifies it tenfold!"

"I agree," Dana said, walking into the room. "I've contacted my counterpart from the other reality, and she says as soon as the crisis is over we can remerge. Everything else about our two separate realities is exactly the same as before we separated. The only difference is this war and Andreas."

"Then I can have my son back?" I asked eagerly.

"Yes, you can have your son back," said Dana.

I released G'narish so that he collapsed on the floor, whirled around, and threw my arms around Dana in a tight embrace.

"Thank you," I sobbed hysterically. "Thank you so much!"

"You'd better help your weyrmate," Dana said. "He's face down on the floor, convulsing."

I turned back to my weyrmate, but Seeoru got there first.

"I think he's overcome with joy, but I'll do something to calm him down anyway."

With very little effort, Seeoru turned him over on his back, then placed one hand on his forehead and the other on his heart. She knelt there, deep in concentration, crooning softly. Slowly, G'narish's sobs diminished to little whimpers, and he sat up, gently pushing Seeoru's hands away.

"I'm okay now," he said thickly, sniffing away a few last tears. "In fact, I feel better than I have since my Impression."

He jumped to his feet.

"We're gonna get through this, Elli," he said, positivity radiating off him like the sun off metal. "We're gonna win this war. I don't know what she's doing, but she's doing something bad, and we're gonna find it, and you're gonna have Paul and Ezra."

"Who the actual shards are Paul and Ezra?" I demanded.

"Our unborn sons, don't you see?" G'narish was practically jumping up-and-down. "After Admiral Paul Benden and Captain Ezra Keroon."

"Whatever you say, Narish," I sighed, exasperated by his euphoria.

We had a lot of work to do and he was suddenly acting very bipolar — sobbing hysterically one minute, hyperactive as a child with ADHD the next.

"I want whatever you're on, G'narish," said Dana, who had been checking on patients and had missed the healing.

"It's Seeoru's power!" G'narish cried. "I don't know what she did, but she healed me through and through. I can fight Thread now without flashbacks, and I can be at peace over Andreas' death.

"Not for long," said Dana. "You'll get your son back, I promise. The remerger will occur as soon as Lessa's dealt with."

"The question remains, where's Lessa?" I asked. "We gotta find her and get her to trial."

"We'll find her, sweetheart," G'narish reassured me with all the arrogant confidence of Toric. "She'll pay for her crimes, and then we can have Andreas back."

"I wish I were as sure as you are," I sighed. "Finding Lessa is our only hope of justice."

Chapter 9 - Living In Captivity

It was a few days before any of the riders who were in detox at Robinton Cove came around to themselves. As I was dealing with the riders who were trying to get back on their proper meds in a separate ward, I was unaware of this development, but Seeoru was very aware of it. She was the one detoxing them by way of her own psionic powers.

"Elli?" she called, walking into my office.

I was in the middle of therapy with a patient, so I did not appreciate the interruption. (I hate interruptions!)

"Seeoru, I'm in with a patient, can you please come back later?" I asked.

The woman was in the act of sobbing uncontrollably on my shoulder because she'd accidentally blasted a little alien girl to smithereens when the child was only trying to protect her in a war zone. Lessa had started that war, but at least she had not fought it on Pernese soil. She had sought to make a new colony on a world but found it already inhabited. Infuriated, she immediately declared that the world would be hers alone and waged war. The dragonrider had been instrumental in bringing Lessa down and helping the indigenous population win the war, but she had been brought back to Pern with severe PTSD that only medicine could keep under control.

"Where was this, Shandra?" I asked hastily. "Could you and Nimith take me there and then if you knew?"

"What are you gonna do?" Shandra asked, lifting her head.

"We're gonna revisit that scene, but something different is gonna happen," I replied. "You really think you'd've killed her if you were in a fit of rage? Or did you simply try to stun her to protect her and realize too late that your blaster was set to destroy mode?"

"I thought it was on stun, but there was a large queen dragon in the way, and I thought it was gonna kill her so I stunned her, but she was gone! I musta had it in destroy mode!"

"A big queen dragon, did you say?" I asked over her sobs.

"There were lots of dragons around me then." Shandra wept. "There were so many of us fighting for that world. It was like the Vietnam war all over again! I researched it thoroughly since the incident."

"What'm I looking for?" I asked. "Was she humanoid? Was she a flying creature? Was she a water dweller?"

"Like a human but with wings that flow out like an angel," she sobbed. "She could live on land, in water, or in the air."

"Chlorith?" I called.

"I'll be right back."

"But Elli, Brekke's awake, and she needs to talk to you and Ky. It's urgent!"

"Later, Seeoru. Patients can't wait."

"She's a patient, too," Seeoru protested.

"But she willingly worked with Lessa," I fired back. "Gimme five minutes, okay?"

"Just talk to her! Don't be so biased!"

But I was out the door before she could utter another word.

"Do you have the image from Nimith?" I asked Chlorith.

_I do_, she replied.

"Then let's go!" I called.

"Your spacesuit!" Tiffany shouted at me.

"I'm wearing it already!" I shouted back. "Wanna come along?"

"No, I'm not wearing mine."

The jump _between_ was interminable. I counted at least 3 minutes before we entered into chaos! There were screams… human, dragon, and avian alike. I could hear blasters going off in all directions. I heard Lessa screaming at one point, but I ignored her. I was on a mission: Killashandra needed me. I had shortened her name to Shandra because the word Kill was in the first part of her name, and she wanted to disassociate herself from killing.

There she was. I saw her through Chlorith's eyes. She was a tall, slender woman with blond hair and blue eyes, and she rode a diminutive queen dragon with scars all down her back. Somebody had been beating her. And there was the child. She did very much resemble an angel. She saw us and sought to protect Shandra from us. The look Shandra gave her was that of a mother protecting her daughter. She aimed her blaster right at us, but I saw, just before Chlorith snatched the little girl up in her talons, that it was indeed on stun mode.

"Let's go hear what our villainess has to say!"

We went _between_ just as she fired. I only had a small second to wonder if a 3-minute jump would be too much for the girl, who couldn't have been any more than six Turns old, before we were there. I couldn't reach Chlorith's talons from her back, so all I could do was pray that the child would be all right. When we landed at Robinton Cove, I unstrapped my cane first, then laboriously picked up the little girl, and made my clumsy way to Dana's part of the hospital.

"Dana, you have a patient. I gotta go. Brekke's awake and I have a patient in my office."

Without waiting to see whether or not the child was all right, I rushed back to Seeoru, only to hear myself telling her to give me five minutes. Chlorith and I might have needed to time it, but she had jumped me too close to myself. I felt a strong sense of vertigo overtake me as I passed myself heading out the door.

"I'm here," I said as I heard Seeoru crooning to the queen rider.

"You told me to give you five, so I'm healing her quickly before I take you to see Brekke. Didn't you cut it a little close?"

"I almost passed out as a matter of fact," I said ruefully. "A three-minute jump there, another one back, and another minute to accomplish what I needed to. Hopefully she's all right. She's in the hospital for possible asphyxiation. She didn't have a spacesuit on her when we transferred her between, so she'll need to stay in the hyperbaric chamber for a while. That is, if Dana can stop gawking at her long enough to put her in there."

"LOL," chuckled Seeoru. "You know she will."

I stopped short at Brekke's door when I heard the sound of weeping, or was it laughter? I couldn't tell from this distance.

"Is this natural for someone who's just gotten off a high dose of drugs?" I asked the 16-year-old Starwoman.

"Not the way I do it," Seeoru replied. "She should be fully healed.

"Then what on Pern is she laughing about?" I whispered.

"She is not laughing," Seeoru whispered back. "She is weeping."

"I could see our Brekke weeping, but yours?"

"She sees the error of her ways, the same way Lara did, and she regrets ever helping Lessa, and she desperately wants her dragon back. She's desperate to make up for her actions — so desperate in fact, that she's willing to sing."

That was what I needed to hear, though I was still frankly skeptical. How can a villain change their spots so quickly? It had taken Lara 30 Turns of being incapacitated to finally see the error of her ways. Had it just been the psychotropic drugs that had forced her to desire world domination? Could meds really alter your mind processes in such a way? I stopped myself short at that question. Yes, they most certainly could, I answered myself. Your meds either made you feel better or worse, and with those feelings came different actions or personality traits that came out in you. The Paxil made you manic, the lithium stabilized you, and all those other meds had contributed as well. I still missed Geodon from time to time when I couldn't sleep, but I didn't miss anything else. I was now a normal, well-balanced woman with no side effects if I failed to keep on schedule. I didn't have to stop everything I was doing just to take meds. Keep an open mind, I told myself, or was that Chlorith's voice in my head?

"I'm here, Starwoman." I said, knocking on the half-open door. "What do you have to tell me?"

"Don't call me that!" Brekke sobbed from her gut. "I'm no Starwoman! If I were, I would never have gone along with her!"

She put an angry emphasis on the pronoun as she said it.

"Okay, Brekke," I said. "What do you have for me?"

"She knew someone would figure out she was giving us psychotropic drugs, so she started imprisoning all the dolphins, and I helped her do it."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because their sonar capabilities would've been able to detect psychotropics," she sobbed. "She had them telekinetically transported to the dragon lake that adjoins High Reaches Starhold and Firlea Starhold."

"What?" I screamed from my own gut. "Seeoru, get Ky, time it!"

"I don't need a dragon to get her! I can do it myself," Seeoru replied.

"Can you travel in time without Lineth?" I demanded, shouting in my anger.

"Yes I can, but why are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you, sweetheart. I'm mad at Lessa," I said. "Killing a baby is bad enough; to imprison a highly intelligent being where you know it's gonna perish is inexcusable! Where is she? When I get my hands on her ...".

"She's probably there at the lake," Brekke said. "She's determined to capture every last dolphin on the planet and kill them."

"She might as well have beached them and kept them on land!" I shouted. "Dolphins can't survive in fresh water! Get all the Aquilan dragonriders you can to transport them back into the ocean."

"And how, pray tell, are we gonna do that?" G'narish demanded.

He had come into the room unnoticed. Now he put a restraining hand on my shoulder.

"You can't go off half-cocked," he told me.

"Like hell I can't!" I shouted at him. "You'd do the same exact thing if you heard what she's doing. She's using Wirenth's TK abilities to transport every dolphin on Pern from the sea to that lake that separates High Reaches Starhold from Firlea Starhold!"

"I heard," he said quietly; "but it's nothing to get worked up about."

"Nothing to get worked up about?" I spluttered, my eyes stinging with angry tears. "What if it was your dragon she had captured? What if she had chopped his wings off so he couldn't fly anymore! He couldn't get food for himself, or even swim with the dolphins if he wanted to. These dolphins were most likely the descendants of those who had been treated with mentasynth, so they could vehemently protest their position. They'd know they were in captivity, and they would know they're suffering. But of course Lessa wouldn't care about their complaints. She'd hear them and laugh! Killing our son was already bad enough, but he died instantaneously from that lethal dose. At least that's what Dana said, and I trust her. These dolphins will not die instantaneously! And they'll die for something that should be applauded! They'll die for their special abilities! Now can you say there's nothing to get worked up about?"

Beside me, Seeoru was crooning in a quavery voice.

"It's all my fault!" she cried.

"What's all your fault?" asked G'narish, as I was too angry to comfort the girl.

"I was the one who discovered the psychotropics, and she's blaming the d-d-Dolphins for my d-d-discovery!"

"If you hadn't discovered the drugs, the dolphins most certainly would've," G'narish spoke tenderly, taking the sobbing girl up in his arms to comfort her. "That would've been our next step, taking all the Starmen and women to the dolphins in their area and making them check for drugs."

"We didn't know about you until Ky said something," Dana said, walking out of her wing and into the corridor. "She'll live, by the way, Elli." She said in an aside to me. "She's gonna take a while to recover from lack of oxygen, but she should have no lasting effects. She's in the hyperbaric chamber right now, but if Killashandra wants to see her, she's more than welcome to."

"Dana, we've got to rescue the dolphins!" I sobbed. "How're we gonna manage it? Do we use TK ourselves?"

"It's our only option," Dana said with a sigh. "We can't transport them _between_. Who knows how they'd take it? Who knows how many are still alive now?"

"But we have to try!" I said. "That lake is too small, and it's freshwater! Dolphins need saltwater!"

"I think if we enlist the Aquilans, we can succeed," she said, smiling.

"How many live in that lake?" I asked.

"They can survive in both salt and freshwater, so who knows. Ky says they generally keep to themselves. They used to be a boisterous lot before Lessa took over. Now they're suspicious of all humans, afraid that they'll all be like her."

"They shouldn't be with Merleek among them," I said. "She's their truthsayer."

"That's who we'll speak to," Dana said decisively. "We'll speak to Merleek. She'll know what to do.

"Where is their Starhold?" I asked.

"Waterhold," Dana corrected me.

"Are you sure we'll find D'vix and Merleek?" I asked.

"Davix," Dana corrected me again. "They don't contract their names like the humans do."

"Can you at least take me to them?" I demanded, getting impatient.

"Of course I can," said Dana contritely.

When we emerged out of _between_, we were in a tropical climate. Chlorith and Tarnaa landed us right in the water where Davix and Merleek were engaged in a two-person game of water polo.

"Sorry to disturb you but the dolphins need help," Dana said without preamble. "Who among you is a medic?"

"I am," Merleek replied. "Where is that excrescence keeping them?"

"In the lake between High Reaches and Firlea Starholds," I responded, the anger sparkling in my sky-blue eyes.

"In freshwater?!" Davix shouted, dropping the ball back into the water. "By all the sacred waters, why the hell is she doing this?"

"To keep them from discovering the psychotropics," Dana explained, for I was too angry to speak civilly.

"How did you discover them if not for the dolphins?" asked Merleek.

"Seeoru found them," I spat. "She underestimated the powers of the Skolrom. Now she's all upset because the dolphins are being blamed for what she did."

"That's so Seeoru," Merleek sighed sadly. "Too compassionate for her own good."

"You can never have too much compassion," I defended her stoutly.

"But you need to know when to be assertive," said Merleek. "You need to know when to stand up for yourself. She never does."

"Reminds me of me before I Impressed Chlorith," I muttered.

"Well, let's go." said Davix.

"How are we gonna transport them?" asked G'narish, speaking for the first time. "We can't swim them back to the sea. We can't put them on our dragons. They'd be without water entirely until we returned them to the sea. They wouldn't survive between."

"TK," said Merleek. "That's the only way. Let's get to the lake and assess the situation from there."

When we landed at the lake, there were cries of terror resounding from all sides. The lake was just deep enough to keep the dolphins afloat, but they were crammed altogether in a tight spot.

"I don't like their color," Merleek said.

"Was that all of you?" she asked. "Did Starwoman Lessa capture all of you?"

"Don't speak!" whispered a dolphin in perfect English.

Our dolphins' English was still broken from lack of use for 2500 Turns, but it was on the mend.

"Why not?" I demanded, not seeing what everybody else now saw.

Starwoman Lessa was standing at the shoulder of a dolphin, spray bottle in her hands. Wirenth waited patiently by her side, her mouth open. Lessa was using a spray bottle to give Wirenth her dose of psychotropics, I thought, but I was wrong. She opened the dolphin's jaw and sprayed the contents of the bottle into its mouth. The poor creature began to convulse. Then it sank down into the water. Still convulsing, we watched the animal drown, choking and convulsing on its own vomit.

"That's it right there!" G'narish whipped out his blaster, which he had just received from Fandarel that day. "You're done, Starwoman! You're no longer fit to live on this world!"

He set the blaster to destroy mode and fired.

"Now you see her, now you don't," he said as she disintegrated into oblivion.

"Can we save that poor dolphin?" I begged Merleek.

I hadn't seen Lessa's death occur, of course, but I had surmised that it had happened by G'narish's cryptic quote.

"You hadn't even tested that to make sure it worked!" Dana protested.

"Well, it works!" G'narish said smugly. "Now to get to the dolphins."

Gyarmath took the initiative and hurled a dolphin into the air. It vanished from sight. Chlorith took her turn, and then Tarnaa. Davix and Merleek persuaded their dragons to join in, and soon, all the surviving dolphins had been removed from the lake.

"I wonder if they made it back to the sea." I said.

"I sure as hell hope so!" Dana declared.

"Only one way to find out, isn't there?" said G'narish.

We mounted our dragons and returned to the Waterhold. To my surprise, all the dolphins that had been removed from the lake were there, listless, depressed, and very, very, sick.

"They're gonna need treatment," Dana said. "If I didn't already have a lot of patients, I'd undertake the duty myself, but who would help the other patients?"

"I will help the dolphins," came a new voice.

We all turned around, surprised, to see Moreta swimming out to meet us on Orlith's back.

"Brekke said you'd be here. She's desperate to see Wirenth so I brought her, but Wirenth's gonna need to be detoxicated."

"Bad drugs!" muttered the dolphin closest to me. "Too many. If you don't detox her soon, she's gonna die."

"Brekke said she'd also help if you'd let her," Moreta continued as if there had been no interruption.

"That's fine," I said distractedly.

"Your sonar is still working?" I asked the dolphin.

"Always." it squeed. "Lessa killed my calf. The least I can do is take Wirenth away from her, too."

"Lessa's dead." I told the dolphin softly. "She paid for her crimes with her life. She killed my son, too."

"No she didn't." Moreta said triumphantly. "Right when G'narish killed Lessa, our realities re-merged. He's alive and healthy. He got his last dose of immunotherapy today. I administered it. Now, lemme see what I can do for these dolphins. Thankfully she didn't capture every single one of them. She was only able to capture about 50 a day before Wirenth got too tired to hurl anymore. I bet asking to learn TK to hurl that asteroid out of the system was a ploy to use it as a weapon later. I wished with all my heart that we had never taught them telekinesis but that we'd just done the hurling ourselves!"

"We wouldn'ta gotten away with that, Reta," I said. "Well, we'd best go back and tell the Weyrleaders and Starleaders that she's no longer among the living."

"G'narish is gonna suffer for what he did," Ky said, swimming up to us. "I can see it in his face."

"I'll probably have to do extensive therapy on my own weyrmate, again!" I sighed.

"Seeoru could take care of that if you would let her. She's decided to retire her position at Leeaajhu Starhold to work at Robinton Cove to heal all the patients there. She thinks what you're doing is noble work. Daphne's queen's about to rise, and she always goes for her father's dragon, so he would become the new Gelum."

"What's a Gelum?" I asked.

"Gelum is the Skolrom word for leader," Ky said. "I guarantee you won't lose any patients with her around. The only things she cannot heal are birth defects, or congenital diseases or disabilities. You have to acquire the injury after you've already been born. Sorry about that, Elli."

"What're you sorry about?" I smiled. "I love being blind. I've been blind since I was born. I wouldn't have it any other way!"

"Really?" asked Ky, amazed. "You don't see it as a tragedy?"

"The REAL tragedy is NOT the disability," I told her. "The REAL tragedy is how badly you or those around you choose to handle it."

Chapter 10 - A New Beginning

Somehow, Time had erased itself with the re-merger of the two realities where Andreas was concerned. I looked at the date with my AIVAS echo dot, and it told me it was the last day of the 39th Turn of the 9th Pass, so once again, it was Turnover Eve. Today would have no tragedies; it would be a wonderful day. Starwoman Lessa was no more, so both realities would have ample reason to celebrate. A Weyrleaders'/Starleaders' meeting was scheduled for today to discuss how we would move forward. The dragonriders from the Starworld needed a lot of help going forward because Lessa had ruled the entire world as a tyrant, and most of them had been feared and persecuted by her, so they were afraid to step up.

Dana and I were also privy to this needing, as we were the ones who discovered the initial rift. Kara, Ryeena, Tiffany, and Ky were also mandated to attend. Moreta was asked to attend as well, but she was busy taking care of the dolphins, so she couldn't make it. They were all in very bad shape. Lessa hadn't been able to capture all of them, thank the First Shell, but she had managed to capture a lot of them, and they were all very ill from their long ordeal in that awful lake. Moreta couldn't justify leaving them for one second if they were to survive through this.

The meeting was to be held at Dana's house in Robinton Cove. We would also eat during the meeting instead of afterwards because it was indeed a holiday.

Brekke officially resigned her post as Senior Starwoman. She wanted to apologize to the dolphins for her part in their terrible ordeal. I promised to take her right after the meeting. Prideth was due to mate any time soon, but so was Aramina's queen Tegranth, so who knew who was going to be Senior Starwoman. I devoutly hoped it would be Ky. Aramina had a domineering personality, and I didn't want anything else untoward happening to that reality.

F'nor was forgiven his support of Brekke, because he told F'lar he knew there was something wrong with her all along, and that she would never have gone willingly with the former Starwoman's plans. However, he felt it necessary to step down as Starleader, as he had not gotten Brekke to the hospital to detoxify her.

"So now, the question remains, who will be Senior Starwoman of Benden?" Asked F'lar.

Aramina was not present at this meeting. She was too busy dealing with her recalcitrant son Readis who wanted to be a dolphineer when she wanted him to be a dragonrider. Telling her you could be both did not help matters, as she was afraid his dragon would drown because he'd be underwater too long. In her eyes, you had to be one or the other.

"Couldn't he make his own choice?" asked her starmate Jayge. "He's 16 now."

And so, the drama went on. I was glad not to be a part of it. In my eyes, he could be both, but I should have had no opinion on the matter. Today, she was too busy keeping him away from Moreta and the sea, so she was unable to attend the meeting.

"How do we proceed from here?" asked my G'narish.

"I say we move freely from here to the Starworld," I replied. "We can trade goods just as though they were in our universe because we can go _between_ realities. We give them our old stuff and they give us their new stuff."

"And have you seen the way G'narish looks at Moreta?" I continued, flirtatiously. "We could have an inter-universe relationship going on. He can't leave the Starworld, as he's Starleader, and she can't leave us, because she's instrumental at Robinton Cove teaching hospital. Orlith will also rise soon, and you need a woman in your life, G'narish. I know you're still grieving for Nadira, but that'll never end. Moreta can't replace her but she can still love you, and she needs a constant in her life, as well. She can take breaks and visit you from time to time, and you can do the same thing. Think about it. A long-distance relationship is not always bad."

My G'narish couldn't blush; his skin pigmentation was too dark, but the Starleader G'narish had much lighter skin, and it was glowing redder than the Red Star.

"Yes, it is time." Seeoru said gently, taking her hand and laying it upon his chest.

The radiant blush turned into an even more radiant smile.

"I'll go right now and ask if I can join her next mating flight!" said G'narish, springing to his feet and running out of the room.

"I want whatever you give people when you heal them, Seeoru," I said, grinning.

"Speaking of that," she responded, now sounding tentative. "I took the liberty of healing Andreas the rest of the way last night. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course I wouldn't mind!" I exclaimed. "My son has never been healthy his whole life with that stupid liver cancer! I wanted him to be healthy as long as I can remember!"

"Can you heal Tiffany, too?" D'nag timidly inquired. "She can't eat anything, and I think the cancer's coming back."

"I can definitely do that for all four of you."

"All four of us?" D'nag wondered.

"There are two inside her, you know. Your daughters will be healthier if I heal her."

"How long have you known?" Tiffany demanded.

"As soon as they were conceived, they had a telepathic touch. When sperm meets egg and they become one, the telepathy starts instantaneously. That's how Skolrom mothers find out they're expecting."

"I knew since Christmas, but I didn't tell anyone, even D'nag," she confessed.

"Wear your spacesuits when you go between, Twin," I ordered.

"Of course, Dude," she replied in a duh voice.

"Lie down, Tiff," Seeoru directed. "I have a pillow all ready for you. And you don't have to take your clothes off. I can do it through your garments."

Seeoru began to croon a lullaby as she ran her hands all the way up and down Tiffany's body. The cancer was indeed back, and it flowed from Tiffany into Seeoru where she used her psychic powers to disperse it and kill it. She lingered on Tiffany's throat and stomach, pulling out the feeding tube as she went. The incision closed, and she got up and offered Tiffany a drink of water. Tiffany gulped it down without realizing what she was doing and sat up.

"I've never felt so good in my life!" she exclaimed, leaping to her feet like a kangaroo.

"Let's go, Rollith!" she cried. "We're going to fly!"

"The meeting isn't over yet." I called out, but Tiffany was already out the door, her cane swinging wildly as she ran.

"Jesus H. Christ!" I exclaimed. "I've never seen her that hyper!"

"It'll wear off," Seeoru said soothingly. "That's the only side-effect of healing I know of."

"So where do we go from here?" asked Ky.

"We celebrate!" I replied. "We trade, we talk, we ally ourselves with each other. How do you like that?"

"Agreed." said both F'lars together.

"Seconded," called everyone else.

"Now let's go party!" I shouted.

"What about the dolphins?" Brekke demanded.

"I'll take you to them," I sighed. "Wirenth's still detoxing so you'll have to ride Chlorith. Is that okay?"

"Yes, that's okay," Brekke said. "I think the dolphins will remember Wirenth and become very afraid so that I won't be able to apologize to them."

When we landed at the Waterhold, Merleek was in a right state.

"What's she doing here?" she demanded, pointing at Brekke.

"She's here to apologize," I replied.

"How the hell are we supposed to accept her apology? Hasn't she done enough already?"

"She was under the influence of psychotropics when she did it, and I believe she would appreciate it if you talked to her instead of behind her back," I said.

"No more drugs!" squeed a voice from under Merleek's hand. "No more drugs! She's clean! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! She's clean!"

"Yes, I am clean, and I came to apologize for my part in your capture. I must've killed more than I can count, and I never meant that to happen."

Sobs wracked her body, the kind of sobs that brought relief to people when they wept. I took Brekke up in my arms and held her.

"If you're putting on a show," Merleek said hesitantly, "it's a very good one. I detect no lies in you this time. I forgive you. Psychotropics can really fuck with your brain."

"I wanna help heal the dolphins," she sobbed. "I love dolphins. My dream was to become a dolphineer before I became a dragonrider."

"I think we should mix up the starholds," I said absently. "Mix them with Kendite, Aquilan, Skolrom, and humans. Perhaps invite that new race I saved to colonize Pern. I think we should also invite those species to colonize our reality as well. We could use some diversity."

"You're right," Merleek agreed. "Our starholds used to be mixed before we went forward 400 turns to stop that fragment."

"You're an Oldtimer?" I asked, incredulously.

"All the Starholds comprise Oldtimers except Benden," she said. "I was born in the old time."

"No offense or anything," I remarked. "I know there's a stigma between the modern riders and the Oldtimers."

"None taken, and I hope to heal that rift," Merleek said.

"Let's do it!" I cried. "Let's party hearty and forget all our little prejudices and stigmas. Let's get together and all be friends!"

What had started out with pain and mistrust was slowly being replaced with hope and renewal. What better reason to celebrate a Turnover?

THE END


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